The Nuclear Diary
by jjpprob
Summary: A story in Diary form, set in an alternate timeline, where world war two ended differently, and the world is now engulfed in a nuclear war. It portrays the experiences of a young boy, who has to scramble to the fallout shelter. This is my First Fanfic.


Diary of James Roberts,  
Age fifteen years and one day. Nov. 2nd, 2003, 10.20am I heard the announcement on the radio. There were nukes coming. Not the small, "Take out a city" kind, more like the "Remove the United Kingdom from existence" kind. I was absolutely terrified at the thought that I may die, and I wondered about my family. My sister, Zoë, went to Kendrick, and although it was the best school in the country, it was almost ancient, and falling apart. Would it survive the explosion? I tried not to think about it, but couldn't help worrying about where I'd go if I survived and my parents didn't.  
As Mrs. Hadley, our English teacher, instructed us, we rose from our seats, and were led down the corridor, towards the hall. Most of us managed to contain ourselves, but looked panic-stricken. The Year Sevens, who were all huddled together, however, were unable to compose themselves, and most of them couldn't resist bursting into tears. Edward couldn't stop laughing. I asked him what was so funny about the whole world being engulfed in war, but he looked at me strangely, sniggered, and asked me "What war?" "In case you haven't noticed, a nuke's about to wipe out the entire British population." I replied. "You actually believe that?" he mockingly asked, "It's blatantly another drill, they just wanted to test our reactions to a 'real' one by not telling us about it. I'm off, there's no reason to be here." "NO! You don't know that it's a drill," I pleaded. Raising an eyebrow, he replied, "You don't know it's real" "Ed, snap out of it! You're risking your life for no reason!" I futilely said. "No, You're wasting yours" He said, and walked out of the building, onto the field, all the time laughing about how "gullible" we were. And then he was gone. I never saw him again. Mrs. Lister, his form tutor, was responsible for his safety, and went after him to bring him back. They never found the bodies. We descended down the ladder in Mrs Taylor's office, next to the hall, and before long we were in the shelter, and the doors were sealed.  
  
10.30 We've been allocated bunks now, and they've explained the food rationing system to us. The Year Sevens and some of the younger Year Eights are still at the age that they have to take deep-sleep pills so the air supply depletes less quickly. I asked Mrs. Hadley how long we'd be stuck in here. She checked with Mr Goulborn, our headmaster, and replied to me "At least 6 months, maybe more, it was a huge bomb, and it'll take at least 5 months to clear. After that, we have to wait another month just to be sure. If the surface radiation sensors detect any different, we'll be told immediately." That's a long time to stay in the same clothes, I thought. Daniel, who is only happy when in the presence of a Nintendo console, let out a groan. I asked him what was wrong (apart from the bomb being dropped) and he whiningly replied "6 months without a Gamecube!" If Daniel was without one for too long, he could go insane from boredom, I realised. Although there are a few books and board games, I couldn't picture him having much fun with them. He looked dismayed, but tried to enjoy playing "Snakes and Ladders" with me. He got frustrated at the linearity of the game, said "SOD THIS" and chucked the board at me, the corner just catching my ear. As there was no reason to stay awake, Daniel decided to go to sleep, and asked me to wake him up for teatime. I then went to read for a while, before writing this entry of my diary.  
  
Nov. 9th, 2003 6:30 It is the end of my first week here in the shelter. Earlier today, Scott, not the brightest of my friends, expressed his curiosity about the effects of the radiation. I told him that it wasn't anything to worry about, because the seals are never going to be broken until the all clear. Daniel, who had taken up the post of pessimist for the shelter, decided to unnerve Scott, by explaining exactly what would happen if someone broke the seals prematurely. "You would suffer about half a day of excruciating, continuous pain, before you suffer the slowest, most agonising death imaginable." Not surprisingly, this unnerved Scott more than a little, and he immediately asked to swap bunks with Julie, whose bed was furthest from the seal. He hopes that, in the event of a seal-break, he will be the last to die. I don't agree with his ideas, I would prefer to be one of the first to die, rather than watch everyone else in the shelter die painfully, watching the inescapable fate that was waiting for me. My final moments would be of pure panic as the air ate away at my lungs. Dying quickly would prevent me from seeing all that suffering, giving me a slightly better death than Scott would get. I explained this to Scott, and he saw my point, but still thought it better to prolong his life as much as possible. This made no difference anyway, Julie was unwilling to swap bunks, making the whole conversation mostly pointless, but at least it gave us something to do. Apart from the odd conversation like this, my life is now consumed by reading, one of the only things in the shelter to keep me from going insane with boredom. Well, that and this diary. If we survive this, which I expect we will, I'd love to look back on this as a record of this war. It could be in a museum one day, if I'm lucky, right next to Hitler's "We won the war" speech. Ever since WWIII started with Hitler's grandson's conquest of over half the world, there's been not a day in my life where I haven't felt on- edge about the Coalition of Free Nations attacking the Hitler Alliance, and my life being threatened, as it is now. Anyway, it is getting late, I must get sleep.  
  
December 3rd, 2003 It's been a pretty uneventful month in the shelter. Daniel was overjoyed to find that a young Year Nine, Katie Chapman, had had a Game Boy Advance in her Blazer pocket as he entered the shelter on that fateful day. Katie had completed his only game 3 times now, so she was happy to lend the handheld games console to Daniel for the remainder of our time in the shelter, or until he got bored with it, whatever came first. He now spends hours on it, and ignores us most of the time, except when he strains his eyes and has to stop for an hour or two. Although it's almost a full month until Christmas, everyone is already getting hyped up about it. I don't see the point in looking forward to it, it'll just be a normal day, with the exception that there will be special radio sermons about the birth of Jesus, etc. Even Daniel looks forward to it between his gaming sessions, although only Nintendo makes him happy, and he won't get any games for Christmas, none of us will get any presents. All in all, a pretty pointless hype, if you ask me. I was lucky though, I just managed to get my birthday in before the bomb strike, most people will spend their 15th in a fortified hole in the ground. This is the first time that it's occurred to me that my birthday was the last full day that I was with my family before the strike, but hopefully not the last in my life. I hate thinking about stuff like this, so I'll change the subject. About a week ago, Julie remembered a large stockpile of energy sweets, dairy milk bars and teabags she had left here two weeks before the nuke came. Every few weeks, we have to make sure that there's nothing that we'd need in the bomb-shelter that isn't down there. I remembered my toothbrush, but nobody seemed to have any toothpaste, so my teeth are not exactly the cleanest in the world. Anyway, Julie loves sweets, chocolate, and tea, and they all make her go hyper (we never managed to work out why tea did that) she shared a few round, but shovelled about 5 packs of energy sweets into her mouth in the space of about 10 minutes. Needless to say, she was charging around the shelter for about five hours afterwards, and couldn't stop laughing. Eventually we managed to pin her down, and strapped her onto her bunk until she calmed down. We remembered the next morning that she was still there. This made no difference, she was still quite hyper, and it was breakfast time before it was safe to release her. Okay, maybe this month was a bit more eventful than I said, but that happened over a long time. The bits in-between were very boring, and consisted mainly of reading, eating, sleeping, and having the "Snakes and Ladders" board thrown at me (Daniel hates the game, but loves the way the board flies through the air). He really needs to get out more. That's all that happened this month, only five more until the all clear, hopefully.  
  
December 25th 2003 I don't believe it. When they were built, some holes were bored between all of Britain's shelters, and wires thread through them. They were attached to a central computer, and networked to every shelter's single computer. As it is Christmas, they decided to let all of us contact our parents using this network. I was overwhelmed to find out that they were all right. Zoë is also ok, although Kendrick is just a pile of old bricks. It always was just a pile of bricks, I thought, but the bomb totally demolished it. I could not talk to her, only to my parents, who passed on the message, but I was greatly relieved to hear of everyone's survival. The teachers said that one of Edward's friends should be the one to pass on the message of his disappearance to his parents. I volunteered to, as I was the last one to speak to him before he left us. I told his parents he had "Died bravely, staying outside the shelter to fix a fault with the airlock seals". I thought it best not to tell them of his real death, as it would upset them even more, and they may remember him by his foolish side, not for the good things about him, as they should. It isn't the first time a friend has died, as one of my friends I've known since Year Seven, Linley, died 10 months ago. The Coalition attempted to liberate us from Hitler's rule, and a battle ensued in Wokingham, the nearby town. Linley was leaving his favourite place, the library, his head in a book, not paying attention to his surroundings, when he got caught in the crossfire. He never stood a chance. Although I've had my share of friends dying, I'll never be able to accept it. I just know how to react better than most people do.  
Daniel ran out of batteries for his Game Boy Advance the other day. He's now gone back to his old routine of sleeping, eating, throwing the "Snakes and Ladders" board, then sleeping again, until next mealtime. His aim with the board is getting better, as I have to dodge it now. Daniel seems understandably more depressed now his batteries have gone. Julie keeps futilely telling him to "Be happy," but he can't see the point. All in all, he's in a very bad mood. Julie's been on the teabags, and she's started jumping around, with the occasional cry of glee. Unfortunately for us, Julie's more reactive with tea than energy sweets, and she's now moving so fast we can't catch her. I'm going to try again now, she seems to be slowing down a bit. January 23rd 2004 This year is just as crummy as the last one. We had a mini New Year party, but it was rubbish. Granted, I never saw the point in any New Year celebrations, but this is even worse than usual. The only music was one rap CD that one of the girls had, with a pair of tinny speakers. Rap is, in my opinion, possibly the most monotonous, boring "music" around at the moment. Most New Year's parties have fireworks, but they were a bit difficult to supply, let alone launch, in the shelter. The food rations were increased for the day, and there was bad music, and that was it.  
After my last entry, we managed to catch Julie. It was a long chase, it took a few hours on and off for us to catch her. She eventually stopped when she failed to notice the bunk fast approaching her. She tripped over it, and we got her with the sleeping pills. She didn't fall asleep, but the pills cancelled out the tea, and she acted slightly drowsy. She was wobbling about everywhere as if she was drunk, but at least she was saner than she is when hyper. Anyway, I have to stop writing now, as it is time to get my food rations for February.  
  
February 29th 2004 This month has been probably the most linear yet, not much has happened at all. Julie had her birthday, and had another conversation with her parents for her birthday. If I had been born one day later, I'd have had that, and I wouldn't have had so much doubt about my parents' survival. Julie's parents are still safe and well with James, Julie's brother, in the shelter beneath their estate. I remembered that I had my mobile phone on me, as I have done for a few months now. I tried to contact my parents with it, but it appears that the explosion took out the mast, so I can't call or text them. I've read all my books at least twice each now, so I've started swapping with anybody in the shelter who has reading material of any kind (except girly magazines). I tried loads of books that I couldn't get in to, but I have now settled down with Matt Greenleaf's collection of Uncanny X-Men comic books. I've seen the movies a couple of times each, but I never knew how great the original X-Men were. When we leave the shelter, I'll subscribe to their mailing list, these are so deep they're almost like novels, not comics.  
Anyway, enough about how amazing the X-Men are. Today we got news that the opposition have launched another bomb, but this one is luckily not aimed at Britain. Well, it's lucky for us, not for the Germans. It's headed straight for Berlin, on a direct course to Hitler's mansion. Warlord Bush apparently launched it about a week ago, but there's no confirmation about whether or not it hit. I've got a good feeling that Hitler didn't make it, and that once the nuclear fallout clears, we'll be a free country again. Then we can appoint a new ruler of Britain. There's a man called Tony Blair who's supposed to have great plans for the liberation of Iraq, as they also live in a dictatorship, as we do. Anyway, that will have to wait until Britain is rebuilt before any of that can happen. Food rations are coming round again, so I'd better go retrieve mine before I miss them, as I almost did last month.  
  
March 26th 2004 We've only got about ten days left in the shelter now, it's getting really exciting. I can hardly remember anything that happened this month. It's lucky we're going to get let out soon; if I had to have any more rations I think I would have screamed. All we've been getting ever since November is cereal that has the properties of cardboard (including the taste), a couple of mouldy biscuits (the best the school can afford), and once a month, undercooked sausages. I know that you've got to be careful with the sausages that you don't cook them too much in case the heat reacts with the radiation outside, but if you undercook them, we'll probably get food poisoning, which I don't enjoy the prospect of. Some of the Year Sevens are coming round now. Peter Bennett was one of the first to come round, right as Callum Sloper and some of the other numbskulls were using him and some of the other Year Sevens as hurdles. Peter tried to sit up, but took a moron to the head and slumped back to the ground. When he recovered, he staggered to Mrs Hadley, who was the nearest teacher, and told her what Callum and his friends were doing. She immediately walked up to them, and promised a 2-hour after school detention as soon as we get out, assuming the school still exists. Callum grumbled and walked off, followed by his friends. Mrs. Rogers has just told us that, as we will be leaving before two weeks have passed, we are to pack now, to save time when we have to leave. I am going to do that now.  
  
April 1st, 2004, 10:30am Just a short entry, but there's some great news. The all clear has been given, and we are going to be leaving the shelter later today. I can't wait to see my family again; although I know that they are safe and well, seeing them for the first time in 5 months is really exciting. I can't help but wonder what has happened to the landscape outside. I can just picture stumps and charcoal replacing forests, and piles of rubble replacing buildings. Despite this, it'll be nice to get out of the shelter for the first time since November. Anyway, I'm going to prepare to leave now, so I'll write again after we're released.  
  
4:30pm We got clearance to leave the shelter. This is it, I thought, as I ascended the ladder in what was Mrs Taylor's office. I peered up above me, and saw a ceiling. "What on earth?" I muttered to myself, as I continued climbing. I hoisted myself out of the hole in the ground, and looked around. The school was exactly as we left it. That's odd, I thought. We all crowded around Mr Goulborn, who told us to remain calm and not worry, but he himself had a perplexed look on his face.  
Scott noticed a bit of paper on the ground. "Hey, what's this?" he mused, as he walked over towards it. "There's a message on it, but the writing is illegible," he announced. I turned the piece of paper up the correct way, and he read it out. "It says 'In case you haven't figured it out, the bomb was a dud. I told you so, but you didn't listen. From Edward.'" We all felt pretty stupid as we walked ourselves back to our still-intact homes. 


End file.
